Scalia: He's Funny That Way (2003)
Perhaps you've read about Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's recent
insistence that no video or audio recorders be permitted to capture his
address to the City Club of Cleveland, "the oldest continuous free
speech forum in the country."
As one who was possibly the first reporter ever to cover a public
address by Antonin Scalia as a justice, I was not surprised.
This happened 10 years ago when Scalia was given the President's Medal
by St. John's High School. Don't laugh too hard. J. Edgar Hoover,
Patricia Nixon and Art Buchwald also got this honor and actually came
out to get it. A good friend of Scalia who had some connection to St.
John's persuaded His Honor to do the same.
I knew this was going to be big news. Supreme Court justices very
rarely make public speeches. In fact, I think Scalia is practically the
only one. PR being part of my job at St. John's, I invited reporters
from the Washington Post, Times and Gazette newspapers and WMAL etc. to attend the big banquet were the medal was to be exchanged f
or a speech. I planned to write about the event for Our Parish Times myself. Joe Siccardi could get none of his huckabucks to go out on a Thursday night and asked me to cover it for the Catholic Standard as well. As it turned out, none of the invited media showed up. I was the only newsie present.
I was also the first one to recognize and greet Scalia and his wife
when he walked in the door. He was not at all pleased that the school
president and a reception line of "somebodies" were not on the lookout
for him. I found him to be every bit the nasty SOB that he is reputed
to be. Indeed, most such glitterati
that I've encountered are nasty, pompous and even pretentious SOB's,
gratuitously so, exceptions being Ben Bradlee, Ben Wattenberg and James
A. Baker III.
Scalia went all the way to the pretentious. His speech was about anti-Christian elements in American government, but all he really said was "See how smart I am!" A sad and disappointing thing for someone so well-respected to be doing. Still, it was erudite enough to go over the Johnnies' heads. The president thanked him for "talking about my personal hero, Thomas Jefferson," this after Scalia had depicted old Tom as the Anti-Christ.
"I don't want any of this printed!" Scalia threatened on the way out.
"Here," he doffed the medal and tossed it at me,"You take care of
this!" I passed it on and suppose it got back to him. In spite of his
"mando," I quoted him extensively in all my articles. I still have the
mini-cassette with his delivery on it somewhere.
A year and a half later, Scalia made the exact same speech at a black Baptist college. That time, The Washington Post covered it. I suspect he doesn't want his speeches recorded because people will discover that he makes the same speech over and over again.
Photo
of Justice Scalia was taken by Neal Conway during the speech. Lower
riht is Patrick Ellis, FSC, the hapless president of Catholic U.
Copyright © 2003 by Neal J. Conway. All rights reserved.